The Department of Work and Pensions Assesses a Jade Fish

By Nuala Watt

Nuala Watt’s poems lead us through the bureaucratic labyrinth of government assessment, the anxious joy of expecting a child and, with verve and originality, the realities of being a disabled parent. The book isn’t only about disability though. It’s about authenticity, justice, passion – life in dynamic fullness – conveyed in verse that is formally astute and spiritually attuned. It’s about anger, hope, frustration, love, and ‘how to take up a life and walk away.’

Reviews of The Department of Work and Pensions Assesses a Jade Fish

'Sit down before you read these poems. Open the window. Open the door. There’s a bolt of pure electric coming for you. Nuala Watt looks without flinching, and then crafts her vision with wit, tenacity and rhythm. I’m in awe of this work. It’s kaleidoscopic, disturbing, revealing: these poems challenge the white space of the page and wake it up, shake it until it gives back something that’s beyond the constraints of society’s myopic ways of thinking and categorising. Daring, skilful, urgent – I’m already impatient to see what this poet does next.'—Alyson Hallett

'Watt’s words glow. This is a collection that morphs and moves like glass – a body reforming, reshaping, refracting.'—Jen Campbell